Devon Circle called 'an oasis' in South Bend

May 04, 2008|GENE STOWE Tribune Correspondent

Take five historic houses of charming, distinct architecture. Arrange them on a short street -- not a bulging cul-de-sac, mind you, but a no-outlet road looping around a full-length landscaped median. Put it 3 minutes from downtown South Bend. Add a mix of friendly young families and could-be grandparents and babysitters that help each other out. Every now and then, get the city to set up orange cones at the entrance so they can party with friends of friends and the nearby streets. Too good to be true? Maybe -- except there's Devon Circle. "I personally think it is absolutely the most wonderful place to live in South Bend," says Andy Jones, who lived on the street for 30 years before she and her husband Duke sold it last year to live permanently at their lake home. A family from New Orleans lived in the house for a while after Hurricane Katrina while the Joneses stayed at the lake. "It's a unique area and just perfectly situated," she says. "It's not on a busy street. You have a lot of access around the city. The neighbors are friendly and helpful." The newest couple on the block, Leslie and Kreece Fuchs, who moved in last year, feel the same way. "The thing I really like about the area is it has a good neighborhood feeling," she says. "People are always out in their yards and talking. There are a lot of nice, historic homes. It seemed like a good match. "We looked at houses in the entire area -- up in Granger and out in Mishawaka. We liked it so much more than anything else we saw. There are a lot of children in this neighborhood. The kids are always out playing. They're not shy. They come over and play with our dog. There's always something going on. It's a lot of fun." "There's a lot of great things about Devon Circle," agrees Dr. Holly Harris, who moved from Iowa with her husband, Dr. Jim Harris, in 1986. "It is a little haven in the middle of town, a little oasis. "I love the architectural style that's so unique in each house," says Holly, whose 1927 English Tudor was one of the first on the street. "We wanted to live in an older house in an established neighborhood with sidewalks and front yards. To be able to live downtown, there are so many amenities." Amenities within walking or biking distance include Adams High School, Trinity School, the East Race, the Farmers Market, Potawatomi Park, Potawatomi Zoo -- and jobs. "We both work full-time," she says. "That's so common now in families. To be able to live close to where you work allowed a lot more flexibility." The Harrises had two young children when they moved in, and their third is now a junior in high school. Now some other longer-time residents are moving and new young families are coming in. "The neighborhood has really kind of changed over in the last year," she says. The tradition of blocking off the street for a party, which had faded for a few years, has been revived in the past couple of years. Harris' sister, Sara Hake, and her husband, Steve Crowell, moved from Jefferson Street about 10 years ago. Steve remembers tall pines in the median that are no longer there -- one damaged by a police car, one by a snowplow. "The history here is what I love," Sara says. "There's lots of fun stories. Every house is different, and every house has a story." Ed Maginn, who has papers that trace the land back to the Martin van Buren presidency, says Devon Circle was carved out of onetime Studebaker property because the angle of Jefferson Street left too much distance south of Washington along Esther. "It made sense to try to put a little circle in," he says. The land was platted in 1926, and his house was built in 1928. A real estate agent steered Ed and wife Tracy to Granger when they moved from San Francisco, but a month later when a friend bought on Washington, they started looking in the area. Their children are ages 6 to 14. "We wanted to have an established house in an established neighborhood," he says. Andy Jones remembers when they were the new family on the block. "Our children were riding Big Wheels," she says. "We wanted a location that had sidewalks so we could walk baby carriages. We were the young people moving into the circle. Everyone adopted us -- some as grandparents. We had babysitters." They moved Dec. 1 and were surprised at the abundance of Christmas presents they received. "What the neighbors do every Christmas is make cookies or small Christmas presents and give them to the neighbors," she says. While the houses were built mostly in the late 1920s and 1930s, the Joneses' 1923 home arrived in the neighborhood in the mid-1970s, moved from Jefferson Boulevard over the fierce objection of neighbor T. Brooks Brademas. "T. Brooks Brademas apparently lay down in the street to keep it from moving in," says Holly Harris, who lives in the house where Brademas lived and thinks the move succeeded. "It does look like it belongs there." "It took three days to move it," Andy says. "It was vacant for a couple of years. It needed a little work." Gerry and Tracy Byrne, who had lived in a 1774 farmhouse in New Hampshire, bought the house from the Joneses about a year ago. They're renovating the nurses' corridor in the historic structure that was once a doctor's home. They became such friends with the neighbors that everyone was invited to Tracy's 40th birthday party recently, and they're looking forward to an August party with a band in the circle. "Our street's kind of like the United Nations," says Gerry, the assistant lacrosse coach at the University of Notre Dame who enjoys the range of sports youngsters play on the street and a shared basketball court where an old road ran behind the houses. Sara sees a new generation coming up on the street. "When we moved in, Andy's kids were in high school and going to college, and we had the babies," she says. "The kids are out there riding their bikes all the time." Know of a neighborhood worth writing about? Let Gene Stowe know at stowegene@yahoo.com.